Communication systems and platforms are often combinations of copper, wireless and fiber optic media. Transmission rates and capacities have increased and are now measured in gigabytes and terabytes per second to a contemporary standard of ten gigabytes per second. Research continues to move transmission rates toward petabytes and beyond.
In order to achieve, maintain, and even surpass these transmission rates, transmission media and in particular fiber optic conductors must be fabricated and maintained to exacting standards and tolerances. This is particularly so in the fabrication, manufacture, installation, maintenance and testing of fiber optic component end faces. These end faces frequently become contaminated with dirt, dust, oil, grease, and other debris. Contamination, dry, fluidic and combinations thereof can have a significant impact on the quality (e.g., speed and integrity) of transmission across fiber optic networks. As such, cleaning the fiber optic connectors preserves the quality of these very high-speed transmissions. Various types of fiber optic connectors are known. Some of these connectors permit the joining of single optical fibers. Other types of connectors more efficiently permit the joining or connecting of multiple fibers in a single physical connector body. The various types of connectors as such have differing physical structures, connector configurations, components and the like. These include direct contact and expanded beam types.
Improper cleaning can result in the reflectance of the fiber optic transmission (signal), in which the signal is sent back along the transmission path. Improper cleaning can also leave a residue that, improperly characterized as non-removable, can create a stand-off between mated connection to results in signal loss. Improper cleaning can also refract the signal and create losses at the connector which may be multiplied many times over the course of an installation.
Numerous devices are available for cleaning fiber optic end faces. For example, Forrest, U.S. Pat. Nos. 8,429,784, 8,336,149 and 7,552,500, which patents are commonly assigned with the present application and are incorporated herein in their entirety, disclose various devices for cleaning fiber optic connectors. These devices function well to clean many of the surfaces and areas of fiber optic connectors, however, due to their larger size may not be as effective for cleaning more difficult to access areas of the connectors.
Other devices, such as the swabs disclosed in Forrest, U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,526,830, 6,523,908 and 6,393,651, and Kammerer, U.S. Pat. No. 6,795,998, also function well as devices for cleaning fiber optic connectors. However, because these devices require manually moving the swab to remove contamination, they may not be usable to facilitate cleaning all areas of the connectors.
Accordingly, there is a need for a fiber optic cleaning device that can be used to effectively clean all areas of fiber optic connector end faces. Desirably, such a device is portable, allowing it to be used in the field, and provides a high degree of and reliability that connector end faces have been cleaned to specification.